Elysian Fields Quarterly - The Baseball Review

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The News:
On this March day at
century's end, as a sugary dusting of snow
is shaken loose from pine branch by a crow

	Orlando Cepeda

		the one-time Baby Bull

has become the

	1st Buddhist

		in Baseball's

			Hall of Fame!
*	*	*

Lefty Hakuin's commentary:

What is the sound of one hand roaring?

Is it a plaque showing the hero's face before
his mother or father were born?

A display case filled with crumpled leaves, a
mottled stone, maybe a worn glove clutching a pinecone?

379 homers? or
379 drops of rain, pelting a temple bell?
-EFQ

MIKHAIL HOROWITZ is the author of Big League Poets (City Lights, 1978) and a contributor to many outré baseball anthologies. His poem "Pearly Babe," which appeared in vol. 16, no. 3 of EFQ, was subsequently posted on the official Web site of the Los Angeles Dodgers (www.dodgers.com) and recited by Vin Scully.